Terracotta neck-amphora (jar)

Attributed to the Edinburgh Painter

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 171

Obverse, Theseus and the Minotaur with Ariadne (?)
Reverse, Herakles battles an Amazon

This small neck-amphora shows Theseus slaying the Minotaur, the half-man, half-bull who lived in the Labyrinth at Knossos. According to myth, Theseus, one of the seven young men offered as a sacrifice to the Minotaur, killed the beast and was rescued from the Labyrinth with the help of a string given to him by Ariadne, daughter of King Minos.
As Theseus began to represent many of the qualities Athenians thought important about their city, the subject of Theseus and the Minotaur became a popular scene in Athenian vase painting of the Archaic period.

Terracotta neck-amphora (jar), Attributed to the Edinburgh Painter, Terracotta, Greek, Attic

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side 2

Terracotta neck-amphora (jar), Attributed to the Edinburgh Painter, Terracotta, Greek, Attic
Terracotta neck-amphora (jar), Attributed to the Edinburgh Painter, Terracotta, Greek, Attic

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